Google seems to be rolling out improvements to Google Spreadsheets like there's no tomorrow. Or like there's no Microsoft Office tomorrow anyway. When you click the little chart icon in the Google Spreadsheets toolbar, you now get a whole slew of charts and other gadgets to choose from in addition to the pie, bar, and line charts that Google introduced a while back.

The new gadget gallery includes:

• Tables and pivot tables
• Maps and heatmaps
• Google web and image searches for selected values
• Organization charts

Users can also create their own custom gadgets using the Google Gadgets API. In non-chart/gadget news, Google has also added the option to receive email notifications when someone changes a spreadsheet, and a variety of other bug fixes and feature enhancements including improved sort, filter, and unique functions.

[via Google Operating System]

We covered Live Documents, the new online office documents competition last month, that is about to make a move to steal some market share aware from Zoho, ThinkFree and Google.

Live Documents has released some screen grabs from its interface, giving a little more insight into what they are all about. The Flash based interfaces do resemble what Microsoft currently has on the market, but add the ability to collaborate. Screenshots include Presentations, Spreadsheets and Documents.

Live Documents does reference Microsoft, and Microsoft's Office applications quite a bit when talking about its own suite, and the look and feel closely resembles what MS offers, so we have to assume that they have relied heavily on Office as a starting point. Is this a bad thing? Not if you're looking to quickly build and sell the business.

We'll have to test Live Documents when it becomes readily available to see what its winning points are, and whether or not it will become a major player in the online office space.

If you are a Google Docs user you are going to be happy to know that Google Docs Mobile was recently released. Accessing your online Google Docs has gotten easier but don't get your hopes up yet, there are some restrictions.

There were some hints in September about the new mobile service when users came across a working web address for the service. Google Docs Mobile is still in its early stages and it's far from perfect. For instance, only iPhone and Blackberry devices are officially supported. And you can only view documents. You can't edit them. You can either open spreadsheets as an HTML document or you can download an XLS version.

Presentations are said to be viewable on the iPhone. Other devices may work with the mobile version, but Google has said that the more advanced a phone's browsing capability is, the more seamlessly it will work with the Mobile Docs site. As for the interface, it's basically a stripped down version of the online site offering not much more than plain text with no formatting.

A trend that has been flowing with Google has been the development of proper mobile applications, as with Gmail, and Gmail Apps for your domain. We wonder how long it will take for a Google Docs mobile application to get off the ground?

A leading worldwide IT consultancy and outsourcing business with control of over 1 million corporate desktops has added Google Apps to its technology arsenal.

CapGemini [PDF] will start to target the desktops of over a million corporate workers with Google's spread of online office applications that consist of Email, Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets. Slashing IT costs, and saving corporations countless dollars. CapGemini is currently a Microsoft Vista and Lotus Notes partner, but given the search giant's efforts with their "accessible anywhere" applications and storage, CapGemini's clients will have yet another option for the most appropriate technology that fits into their business goals. With Google's applications, users can allow for complete collaboration watching changes in real time.

Google is rumored to be launching a Presentation application into its suite of applications shorty, rounding out its professional offerings. Something for Microsoft to watch out for. CapGemini will collect a £25 license fee charged by Google for the use of its applications.

[via Guardian]

With some students already in school, and some preparing to enter yet another journey into a new semester, let DLS make your studies that much more organized with a few free desktop and web applications that will make your school life that much more enjoyable.

From free document creation applications, online to-do's and organization applications, users are faced with a decision, go for the costly desktop versions and upgrade every few years, or stay ahead of the curve with free web based applications that are constantly updating with new growing feature sets. The choice has never been easier.

This DLS special feature lists out current tools that are floating around the web as highly competitive alternatives for both students and professionals.

Developers are jumping on the new Facebook API, creating sometimes 'useless' add-ons for the social network. Zoho has stepped in and added the ability to GTD while peddling through Facebook.

Zoho tries its best to stay on top of wherever their users might be, they were the first online office productivity toolset to announce they had an iPhone compatible application ready to go for Apple's newest users, and now users of Facebook are able to see the light. Facebook can get a little distracting at times, whether it's at school or work, so why not build in the ability to create and work on documents directly through the application that you spend the most time on throughout the day. 30% of Zoho's users are students so it's a perfect fit, chat with friends and get work done at the same time.

Zoho's new integration to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations directly from Facebook accounts is a simple add on available here. Creating a new document or viewing one opens up another browser tab, or window, allowing you to do your Facebook thing while working in another tab.

Online applications are great, but what happens when you can't get a connection to the internet? Whether it is because you are on an airplane, or in the middle of nowhere camping, and have to get certain emails, calendar items, or files, you are quite possibly out of luck. Its sure a bummer, and one of the reasons why so many people are hesitant about using online applications for their most important information.

Now Imagine being able to take your online applications, offline, and store that data locally in a completely searchable database? Google is making this possible with Gears. Google Gears is an open source browser extension that enables web applications to provide complete offline functionality. Google hopes that developers will use this new toolset to create offline web applications using JavaScript APIs to store and serve the applications resources locally, as well as store data in searchable databases. All of the syncing runs in the background without burning out the browsers memory usage, or slowing anything down.

The Google Gears Beta is currently available for installation on Windows XP,Vista, as well as on Mac and Linux machines. The plug-in works with Firefox 1.5+ and IE 6+. Google's first stop with Gears is Reader, with JavaScript APIs getting released shortly for data storage for use in applications like Docs and Spreadsheets.

The official Google Gears announcement will be made tomorrow to over 5,000 developers at Google's Developer Day gathering.

ThinkFree has launched a few different ways for people to startup their own little applications and mashups.

We covered the company last year when it returned from the dead and began offering a web based application suite. ThinkFree now has a plugin available that was released yesterday that gives Wordpress bloggers the ability to drop in MS Office documents, spreadsheets and presentations that can be viewable even if the end viewer does not have the associated Office or Acrobat applications installed. This opens up the ability for bloggers to drop in a powerpoint presentation into their blog posts, or embed excel spreadsheets of information.

The company has also announced their Viewer API which gives people the opportunity to create mashups and applications using the Viewer utility. ThinkFree wants to get the ball rolling with web service companies who they hope will create mashups and applications using the utility. With the API, designers can integrate Viewer files, doc's, xls, or ppt files directly into an online application, giving end users, regardless of Operating systems or plugins, the ability to view files.

ThinkFree is also working on a document exchange product called ThinkFree Docs that has been described as a Flickr for Office files. Through this new location ThinkFree will enable content creators to read, share, get feedback, and source office documents. There is a demo up online now, but the actual site will be up with a redesign in the near future.

Google has announced a partnership with the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure, and the Kenya Education Network that will result in the use of Google Apps in Rwanda's educational institutions and government ministries, as well as in Kenya's universities. Both of these African countries will now have access to free communication tools that include email, shared calendars, instant messaging and word processing under
their institutions current domain names.

There are two main packages of the Google Apps that are being provided free of charge. With 20,000 users in Rwanda, The National University of Rwanda, the Kigali Institute for Education and the Kigali Institute for Science and Technology will have Google Apps Education Edition. The countries government ministries using Google Apps Standard Edition. 50,000 students at the University of Nairobi will be the first ones offered the Google Apps for Education in Kenya, with 150,000 additional students signing on at a later date.

Google has just issued a press release stating that this initiative will be helping Google to further organize the world's information, and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google's philanthropic Freudian slip is showing, don'tcha think? Gates can run around throwing money at the worlds problems all he wants, but I bet this secures Google a permanent spot in the hearts of many a socially conscious geek.

Google's web based email, Gmail, was once only available if you knew someone on the service that could send you an invite. You could have also gone through the trouble and bought one for $250 on eBay. Well today Google announced that the service is now open for anyone that wants one, without an invite, or without sending an SMS to get an account. There is a free 2 GB of email storage for the taking if you don't have an account yet. Of course the Gmail account comes with Google Calendar and Docs & Spreadsheets to use and store data in as well.

One of Gmail's handiest features has long been its ability to open a large variety of attachments with its "View as HTML" option. Now Google has taken it one logical step futher with an "Open in Google Spreadsheets" option when you receive an Excel file as an attachment. I checked it out and found it to be pretty convenient. While Gmail's HTML view is occasionally lacking, Google Spreadsheets is somewhat more faithful to the original, though charts are still lost in the process. Though like Google Blogoscoped's Philipp Lenssen I'm wary of lock-in, this is the sort of integration "Google Office" needs to compete against other desktop and web-based offerings.

Joe Kraus of Jotspot, has announced today that they have been acquired by Google. Jotspot is a leader in hosted wiki application development. Jotspot was founded in 2004 as the first company to offer this type of hosted wiki solution. Jotspot's goal was to make wiki websites that anyone could update and add to, without knowing coding. Jotspot had a simple WYSIWYG editor, with advanced search and email integration components. Jotspot was not only aimed at smaller personal projects, it was also aimed at corporate intranets, project management, and help desks.

Jotspots hosted plans once sat from a $199 month for 5000 hosted wiki pages with unlimited users. To a simple Personal account with 5 users, 10 pages, for free. Could we possibly see the integration of one giant free plan from Google?

Currently, Jotspot is offline to users. The Palo Alto based company says to stay tuned to regain access to the system. Google is most likely merging all data and transferring the Jot system over to Google's servers. This is an exciting move by Google, again, in the online application environment, adding to their online suite of applications with the likes of Documents, Calendar, Gmail, Spreadsheets, and Apps for your Domain.

Check out some Jotspot screenshots after the jump...

Google has merged Writely, now known as Docs, and Spreadsheets together to form one super online office application. Ok, so it's not super yet, and it still does have some catching up to do with Zoho Office, but it's on the way.

Google Account users now have the benefit of creating, and storing documents and spreadsheets together in the new Docs and Spreadsheets service. Google has listened to users suggestions, and made this into a combined list, that works with the same ideas as Gmail with stars, tags, and searches. Sharing documents and spreadsheets is a breeze, simply choose the individuals you would like to collaborate with, and invite them to view. Google has added another feature here, which allows collaborators the ability to share your spreadsheets.

It looks like a hit so far. One easy convenient location to store all online documents, all under a Google Account ID. The real virtual office is on the way, even though this has not been rolled out for Google Apps for domains....the users that could really benefit from this service. Check out the newly launched Google docs and Spreadsheets blog and a little online tour for more information.

Check out some screenshots after the jump.

Google is rumored to be preparing to release a new online service called Google Docs. The new service will integrate, and possibly merge, Google Spreadsheets and Writely. This move, which could be announced at the Office 2.0 conference tomorrow, slowly expands the online productivity suite that Google is working on. With this additional step, Google forges ahead in the online office space environment.

Another rumbling about a release at Office 2.0 is Zoho Virtual Office. In this latest release, Zoho packages all of its services together, which can include up to 10. The service is said to be free for individuals and $9.95 for business users.

Google has to get its suite of software organized and bundled, before Zoho takes the lead with its extremely promising online productivity software, just take a look at the demo. Stay tuned for what unfolds.

In this world filled recently with online spreadsheet and calendar applications, one enters the mix by making things difficult and a little complicated at first, but easier to get the hang of as time goes by.

Dabble DB is free for a 30 day trial [with prices ranging from $10 to $150 month for corporate users]. It enables users to import their spreadsheets, contacts, and databases, as well as start from a fresh sheet. Data in the spreadsheets and documents can then be shared, and collaboration can be turned on by inviting contacts to edit the information. It's a little tricky to get things started from scratch, but after a while it tends to get better. But wait, should online applications be difficult to use at first? Especially when there are tons of them on the market? No. They have to be simple, and very quick to get your information up and running. I still don't have a good handle on Dabble DB after an hour of fooling around with the tool. I will try it out for a little while longer over my one month free trial, and let you know if I change my mind.

Dabble db is cool, but I think I will stick to my Google Calendar, and Google Spreadsheet. Which are free to use, and integrate nicely with my other applications.

Look after the jump for some screenshots of Dabble DB.